In this chapter, an integrated information system is presented that offers enhanced search and retrieval capabilities to users of heterogeneous digital audiovisual archives. This novel system exploits the advances in handling a/v content related metadata, as introduced by MPEG-7 and worked out by MPEG-21, to offer advanced access services characterized by the tri-fold “semantic phrasing of the request (query)”, “unified handling” of multimedia documents and “personalized response”. The proposed system is targeting the intelligent extraction of semantic information from multimedia document descriptions, taking into account the nature of useful queries that users may issue, and the context determined by user profiles. From a technical point of view, it plays the role of an intermediate access server residing between the end users and multiple diverse in nature audiovisual archives, organized according to the latest MPEG standards.